Primary
by GreenWood Elf
Summary: Balem places the bounty on Jupiter's head, not only to safeguard his interests on Earth, but also to protect his family. A re-imagining of Jupiter Ascending and Balem's motives.


**Author's Note:** What can I say? I'm a sucker for lousy movies, apparently. This fic is a reimagining of _Jupiter Ascending._ As Balem was easily the most fascinating character (IMO, at least) I decided to give him a more likely motive for wanting Jupiter dead. That makes this story AU, though I've tried to stick to canon as much as possible. ;) I hope you enjoy the first chapter!

 **Disclaimer:** I claim no ownership of the movie, _Jupiter Ascending_ nor its plot themes, characters, etc. I own only my OCs.

 **Primary**

 **Chapter One**

"You must kill her."

Balem put his spoon down. It was made of Zalintryre crystal, a rare commodity that even we could scarcely afford to import after the planet had been harvested, and it rang on the table with a peculiar sound that sent a fresh shiver down my spine. He did not look surprised at my sudden ferocity. I was a mother, after all.

"I have sent two dozen of my best Keepers to Earth who will trace the geneprint," he replied in that dry whisper of his, so that I had to strain to hear him. It was a quiet annoyance of mine, even after several millennia of marriage. Sometimes I felt that he spoke so softly just to spite Seraphi, who had had a habit of instructing her son to raise his voice. When I was a young bride, I had foolishly felt that everything Balem did was to anger his mother. Now, of course, I knew better.

"You understand," he continued with a slight air of remonstrance, "it should be done quietly."

Fear made me reckless. I could not help myself. "It ought to be done _now_."

For an instant, Balem looked askance, as if my impatient manner and words had crossed an invisible boundary, one that he had clearly defined and could not imagine his stately wife violating.

I braced myself for his temper, but it never came, disappointing me. If ever there was a time for rage, it should be now. "I suppose you have the matter in hand," I satisfied myself by saying.

Balem said nothing in reply. His eyes were clear and shining like the Zalintyre crystal set on our dining table. I wondered, vaguely, if he felt frightened too.

Glancing down at the thin, amber broth in the bowl before me, my appetite soured. I wished that my husband had chosen a more mindful hour to tell me such desperate news. Out of habit, I glanced at the empty chair beside me. Realization struck. Our daughter was still too young to take dinner with us. And even though she couldn't possibly understand what it meant for her long-dead Grandmother to have regained life on a miniscule estate far away from her own small world, Balem had thus wisely kept her from knowing. In respect, I bowed my head once in his direction.

He would not look at me, however, instead twirling one of his thick rings around his finger. "I will find her, Livia," he rasped. "I will harvest the entire planet before I…"

But he trailed off, and I said nothing, for we both knew the question that hung in the air between us, and the threat that formed in the black recesses of my mind. Seraphi Abrasax reborn. The danger sounded against my fluttering heart. I wanted to give in to weakness and hold my child.

Silence draped itself like a pall over the dining chamber, reminding me only of the unfathomable depth of the universe surrounding us. Even within the gilded and engraved walls of Balem's palatial cruiser, I felt vulnerable to what lay beyond, and all the possibilities that I could not yet understand. A Recurrence had emerged and she could certainly claim more than her title…

Balem had resumed eating his soup and out of the corner of my eye, I could see the serving-droids ready to usher in the next course. I raised my spoon to my lips.

"Titus has requested an audience," Balem said stiffly. He was already sipping his wine when my spoon fell and shattered against the rim of my bowl. The droids whirred into the room as my personal serpentes splice, Portia, wiped the spilled soup from the bodice of my gown. I did not dare mutter a word until they left.

"You have not spoken to your brother in three decades," I said.

Balem was already frowning over the broken crystal. "His FTL arrived yesterday morning."

"You waited to tell me."

"Only because Kalique's response was delayed."

I sucked in my breath through my teeth as if I was mimicking Portia's subtle hiss. "A meeting of all three Primaries?"

"Not a meeting," he replied, holding his arms close to his body as he did when his temper shortened. "We are holographing through the Zalintyre ledger. It's decidedly to my advantage and I won't have to suffer through touching either of them."

Balem must be pressured to make such an admission, even in the privacy of our own dining chamber. I could imagine him cringing as he shook Titus's hand and bent to kiss Kalique's fingers. He always developed a reticence towards physical intimacy just before and after he took a RegenX treatment, as if his skin was too tender to be touched. It had nothing to do with any real pain he experienced, but was some vague phobia of his that had begun after his twenty-second millenium.

"But why now?" I pressed.

Balem pressed his right wrist to his abdomen. "I don't believe—"

"He knows." I swiped the napkin from my lap and laid it on the table. "Titus knows."

My husband looked me straight in the eye. "You are not always correct, Livia."

Again, I bowed my head in respect. How I wished I was wrong.

The droids were bringing in the next course, a delicacy the Entitled were currently serving at the most lavish dinner parties, some strange meat called Tiger. I found it rather bland, but Balem insisted we keep our table finely dressed, even when it was only the two of us eating together.

As they set the plates down, I leaned across towards my husband, heedless of the droids, who could be reprogramed later and said, "I want her dead, Balem. If you love your family you will kill her."

* * *

Later that evening, when I was leaving the dining chamber, I found Portia waiting in the outer corridor, her copper scales glinting in the lowered light.

"Bring her to me," I ordered, sweeping the folds of my gown over my arm.

She nodded once, the pate of her bald head leaning close to my shoulder.

In my apartments, I sat before an ornate mirror that had belonged to an Empress on a planet Balem had harvested centuries ago and removed my dangling earrings and heavy necklaces and took my hair down from the curved headdress that was popular now amongst Entitled women. When the door to my dressing chamber slid open, I turned in my seat and found the smile I somehow always had for her.

Aufidia was clinging to Portia's hand, but she crossed the room with surprisingly ladylike steps, holding up her dress in a manner that mimicked mine. It all made my heart ache, as I realized that at the tender age of eight, her position as heir to the House of Abrasax had matured her already. It was in this way that she differed from her brother, although she could not know it.

"Dia, darling," I said, affecting her nickname that seemed so much more appropriate for her freckled face.

Silently, she slipped onto my lap. I reached for the bristled brush on my dressing table and ran it through her tawny hair.

"Father says he is leaving tomorrow."

I tensed, the brush pausing mid-stroke. "Only for a while," I managed to reassure her. She was not one to be without her father's presence, sensing, perhaps, how defenseless we were when not under his protection.

"Why does he go?" she asked, biting her thumb.

"Because he must."

"But why?" She was at the age when children pelt adults with endless barrages of questions. I thought it was a way of testing parental boundaries. Balem, however, swore it had only to do with curiosity. I remembered, my mouth twitching into a genuine grin, when he had been young and curious. RegenX be damned. We aged, despite the treatments. And there were so many things age stripped from us. Sometimes, I felt naked and old.

"He will go to meet your Aunt and your Uncle and then come back," I said.

Dia said nothing. I wished she would.

The brush felt heavy and useless in my hands. I laid it back on the table and put my fingers on her shoulders. My lips found the top of her head. "Time for bed, yes?" I asked.

Usually, she fought me for more time awake. She liked to read or play with her dolls or (and this I knew from her bodyguards) attempt to sneak from her room and explore the bridge of the cruiser, even though we forbid her from leaving her apartment. Someday, I hoped she would understand why her parents kept her locked away. And someday, if she didn't, maybe I would be happier for it.

As I stood and let her rise from my lap, I was concerned to find her clutching my hand, her little palm sweaty against my skin. "Will you stay tonight?" Dia asked.

"Stay?"

"Till I fall asleep, please. And maybe a little after."

I looked into her small, narrow face. "But Dia, you know I always sing you your songs and then you go to sleep on your own. And if you are lonely you have your Chamber Presence to—"

"For tonight?" she asked again. "Please, Mama. Not for tomorrow, but to—"

"We'll see," I told her, pretending to be sterner than I was, knowing that I would wait at the foot of her bed, in the dark, in the night and watch her sleep, as I had when she was just a baby. There was something desperate within me that I had to satisfy. Something that she would one day know herself.

And if she didn't, if she never did, I knew I would be so much happier for it.

* * *

In the darkest hours of the night, after I had left Dia sleeping and had climbed into my own bed, I rolled over to find Balem resting next to me. It was only then that I realized how much his daughter was like him, how much they shared that I would never understand.

But why, I wondered, so angry at a sequence of all too consequential genes that had arranged themselves in an Earth woman, why had his son been different?

* * *

 **Author's Note:** If you are a hopeless history nerd like me, you may have noticed that I named Balem's wife "Livia" after the wife of Caesar Augustus in an attempt to capitalize on the few parallels between _Jupiter_ 's universe and the early Roman Empire. Likewise, Balem's daughter, Aufidia, has another Roman name. Aufidia was actually the mother of Livia, a little inside joke of my own making, haha.

Sadly, tiger meat _is_ an illegal delicacy in China that the elite serve at lavish dinner parties with some tragically inhumane consequences.

Thank you so much for reading! If you have a minute, please leave me a review. I cherish any and all feedback.


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